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Elinchrom has launched two new ELC 125 and ELC 500 studio strobes

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These days, with the amount of battery-powered strobes out there, we often forget that some people still prefer to plug their strobes into the wall. Elinchrom hasn’t, though. They’ve just announced two new ELC 125 and ELC 500 studio strobes, which offer TTL, and high-speed sync.

Elinchrom says that the new lights are designed to “handle creative adventures reliably and consistency” and features a lot of the things we’ve come to expect from modern strobes, like TTL with a manual exposure lock, high-speed sync up to 1/8000th, a bright daylight-balanced modelling light, built-in radio receivers, 1/10th stop adjustments, and somewhat decent recycle times (depending on power and mode).

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Lighting setup: bounced top light

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Studio lighting can be tricky, but in reality shooting, in a big open studio space with all the fancy modifiers and stands is a damn sight easier than shooting in a small, cramped on-location space.

“But Jake, surely all professional photographers get to shoot in nice big, bright, airy studios all the time right?”

Wrong. In fact part of the job is having the ability to shoot almost anywhere and for those of us who end up shooting fashion and editorial style work, we need to shoot in some very awkward spaces. From underground nightclubs, fancy bathrooms, or even smaller European homes, all of these small spaces present a multitude of problems and if the client wants to shoot there, it’s your job to make it happen.

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How to use light, shadows and highlights for dramatic portrait lighting – Part 2

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Hey guys! In episode 2 from my Light, Shadow, and Hi-light series, I will take you behind the scenes of the image below. I will break down the lighting setup one by one and I will go through the camera gear used so you can easily recreate this look in your own style. Think of it as a great starting point.

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How to shoot black products on a black backdrop using two lights

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Photographing black products on a black background can give you elegant and dramatic shots. However, it can be tricky to separate your product from the background. In this video, Karl Taylor walks you through his process and shows you how he photographs dark products on a dark background.

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How to use light, shadows and highlights for dramatic portrait lighting – Part 1

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Hey, folks! Its a brand new year and one I am pumped for! 2020 is gonna be another great year! To kick this new decade off, I wanted to share with you some lighting setups and behind the scenes from a portrait session where we tried out a few different setups, if you prefer to watch the video you can check it out above.

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This is what low contrast lens filters are and how you can use them in portraits

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As the name of the filter alludes to, these lens filters do indeed lower the overall contrast of a shot. To clarify what that means in relation to photography; these filters will reduce the darkness of the shadows by allowing light to bleed into them from surrounding highlights.

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How to shoot atmospheric photos of glass with just a couple of speedlights

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Photographing glass can be a very tricky topic if you don’t know how to approach it. It doesn’t react to light the way that most of the subjects we shoot do, because there’s really nothing to actually light. It’s all about the lit objects that reflect off it or refract through it.

You don’t need a lot of fancy gear to photograph glass, though, and in this video from Dustin at Workphlo, we see how we can photograph glass with a very simple setup utilising just a couple of speedlights, a small strip softbox and a diffuser.

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How to create the “Corona” lighting effect on your subjects

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I’m just gonna come clean here and say that I just made up the name ‘corona’ for this lighting setup. In fact, the word corona is a commonly used term with solar eclipses. During an eclipse, we can often see the moon silhouetted against a ring of light and the word corona is often used to describe that halo of light we see around the moon.

As we explain this lighting, my reasoning for calling this setup ‘corona’, should start to make a bit more sense because we are actually trying to achieve a similar lighting eclipse look by adding a ring of light around our subject.

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How and why you might want to use High Speed Sync flash in the studio

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High speed sync flash is typically associated with shooting outdoors. You’re in the bright light, and you need to take your shutter past your camera’s sync speed in order to overcome the bright outdoors and bring it under control. High speed sync lets you keep using flash beyond these speeds. But there are times when you might want to use them indoors, too.

In this video, Gavin Hoey shows us why we might want to use high speed sync in the studio or other indoor settings and how to use it to get the shots we want.

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